After culinary experts advised us that next year’s trendy breakfast will be chocolate cake, a Japanese scientist is now telling us that sweet stuff for breakfast isn’t just trendy – it’ll also make us smarter.

He carried out a series of clinical trials, in which participants were required to eat ice cream immediately after waking up, and then had to complete a series of mental exercises on a computer.

(Picture: Getty)

Koga found that compared to a control group who hadn’t had ice cream, those who had eaten ice cream for breakfast exhibited faster reaction times and better information processing skills.

Oh, and if you’re thinking that the results are just down to the shock of eating something icy, Koga repeated the same tests with cold water.

The participants did see an increase in alertness, but to nowhere near the same degree as those who had ice cream. So maybe it’s a combo of coldness and sugar.

(Picture: Getty)

We’re not entirely sure if the mental benefits outweigh the health effects of ice cream for breakfast, and more research is probably needed to see if eating ice cream on a daily basis will have any longterm impact on your mental processing.

But for now, this study is a glorious excuse to eat ice cream first thing in the morning. And that is something we are wholeheartedly behind.